Biden cancels all oil, gas drilling leases in Alaskan Arctic wildlife refuge

[ThatRobGuy]

With energy distribution it was ever thus: American and Arabic oil and gas, British and Australian coal, for example. Germany has very strong links with its neighbours, all already significant trading partners. Electricity already passes under the English channel between France and the British National Grid. Having a strong home market in the European Union reduces reliance on Russian fuels.

I think you are making too much of the technical requirements of wind power.

But, like I mentioned in my previous example, there's pros & cons to that sort of interdependence. It's great for when one country is great for wind, another for solar, etc...

The cons would be situations like where Germany had to fire up fossil fuels again because French workers decided to strike over the retirement age (something Germany has no control over)


It's not a matter of "making too much" of the technical requirements, it's understanding them. Germany is running into that now, where in order to stand up new wind turbines in areas that are conducive for it, they're running into the scenario of actually transporting them (which involves challenges as you can't block major highways in the middle of the day), and having to remove bridges and structures to get them from A to B.

In terms of technical requirements, take it from someone who deals technical requirements for a living... Underthinking technical requirements is more problematic than overthinking them. When "big picture" people and marketing & sales people start talking about stuff that, to them, sounds feasible on paper, they're almost always not considering all the finer points.

Germany's wind power expansion stalls on the roads

Germany's wind power expansion is facing an unexpected roadblock: builders need permits to transport the heavy turbines down the country's roads, and they are waiting months to get them.

www.reuters.com

The things being described in this article are almost certainly things that were an afterthought and weren't discussed early on in the projects.

 

[Whyayeman]

But, like I mentioned in my previous example, there's pros & cons to that sort of interdependence. It's great for when one country is great for wind, another for solar, etc...

The cons would be situations like where Germany had to fire up fossil fuels again because French workers decided to strike over the retirement age (something Germany has no control over)


It's not a matter of "making too much" of the technical requirements, it's understanding them. Germany is running into that now, where in order to stand up new wind turbines in areas that are conducive for it, they're running into the scenario of actually transporting them (which involves challenges as you can't block major highways in the middle of the day), and having to remove bridges and structures to get them from A to B.

In terms of technical requirements, take it from someone who deals technical requirements for a living... Underthinking technical requirements is more problematic than overthinking them. When "big picture" people and marketing & sales people start talking about stuff that, to them, sounds feasible on paper, they're almost always not considering all the finer points.

Germany's wind power expansion stalls on the roads

Germany's wind power expansion is facing an unexpected roadblock: builders need permits to transport the heavy turbines down the country's roads, and they are waiting months to get them.

www.reuters.com

The things being described in this article are almost certainly things that were an afterthought and weren't discussed early on in the projects.

These are logistical problems. The Germans have them for breakfast.

The fact that international trade can be complicated doesn't mean that it shouldn't be undertaken. France and Germany do not trade as separate entities, anyway.

Do not think that Germany will not expand their wind and solar power because it is technically more difficult. They got a big scare over the loss of access to Russian natural gas. They will never rely on it again. (Incidentally, one of Russia's blunders; they have thrown away their most valuable market.)

We have come a long way from Alaska!

 

[Trogdor the Burninator]

the whole thing is a total disaster, and illustrates what happens when public energy policy is made by environmentalists, and not energy experts and scientists.

The other issue people miss when they discuss nuclear power is the lost opportunity and environmental damage that nuclear power paranoia has caused. If the developed world had switched en-mass to nuclear power when it became economical to do so in the 70s and 80s, we could have avoided tens of billions of tons of CO2 emissions and reduced the present impact of global warming. Not to mention avoided millions of deaths caused by fossil fuel pollution and coal mining.

The only country to have gone down this road is France, and they currently have some of the cheapest, greenest power on the planet AND are still able to export excess green power to Western Europe.

Meanwhile the rest of the planet is struggling to replace coal and gas with renewables, a transition that will take decades (pushing billions of tons more CO2 into the atmosphere while doing so), cost trillions of dollars and still not result in fully green power for many countries.

Not that renewables aren't good - they are. But the wasted opportunity from the west not adopting nuclear power should make most people weep.

 

[durangodawood]

Dont think for a second that anti nuclear efforts emerged only from the enviro-left.

Fossil fuels industry groups also campaigned pretty vigorously against them, for obvious reasons. And they turn a lot of ears in congress.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Dont think for a second that anti nuclear efforts emerged only from the enviro-left.

Fossil fuels industry groups also campaigned pretty vigorously against them, for obvious reasons. And they turn a lot of ears in congress.

That's a fair point...

But shouldn't the onus be on the enviro-left to have a healthy level of skepticism toward anti-nuclear efforts coming from the fossil fuel industry?

This could just be anecdotal, but in my experience, those types of folks are willing to do some "page 8 googling" to find ways to debunk pro-coal arguments in order to prove that they were slanted due to fossil fuel influence, but they can't be bothered to do the same when the topic is nuclear?

If someone has done diligent research on the risks of nuclear and have sincere concerns about it, I'm willing to hear them out and have a debate. If they're the kind of person who will gladly do a "deep dive" in order to rebuke coal, but then that diligence seems do a full stop (conveniently) when talking about alternate solutions, then it kinda undermines their purported sincerity.

If someone's willing to sink hours and hours building a Pepe Silvia crime board to prove that a pro-coal study is flawed, but then are content to say "Well, Chernobyl happened, so I'm a 'no' for nuclear", I question their sincerity.

 

[Whyayeman]

But shouldn't the onus be on the enviro-left to have a healthy level of skepticism toward anti-nuclear efforts coming from the fossil fuel industry?

Environmentalists are responsible for the machinations of the most powerful lobby machines in the world!

That is a corker!

 

[Merrill]

Dont think for a second that anti nuclear efforts emerged only from the enviro-left.

Fossil fuels industry groups also campaigned pretty vigorously against them, for obvious reasons. And they turn a lot of ears in congress.

Partly true yes, but the major effort to discontinue nuclear came from the environmentalists and liberal politicians in the US and in Europe.

The Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) project, that involved developing a 4th generation reactor that couldn't melt down, and which could recycle almost all of its spent fuel, was cancelled by the Clinton administration:

Integral fast reactor - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

"With the election of President Bill Clinton in 1992, and the appointment of Hazel O'Leary as the Secretary of Energy, there was pressure from the top to cancel the IFR.[5] Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) and O'Leary led the opposition to the reactor, arguing that it would be a threat to non-proliferation efforts"

The Sierra Club states publicly "The Sierra Club remains unequivocally opposed to nuclear energy."

And while some Democrats support nuclear power, the party remains overwhelmingly against it

so between environmentalists, liberal politicians, and the fossil fuel lobby, reactors don't get built. The air gets dirtier

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Environmentalists are responsible for the machinations of the most powerful lobby machines in the world!

That is a corker!

It's not so much that they're responsible for it... I was referring to the levels of skepticism surrounding it (if you look at the context of the post I was replying to)

Here was the post:
"
Dont think for a second that anti nuclear efforts emerged only from the enviro-left.

Fossil fuels industry groups also campaigned pretty vigorously against them, for obvious reasons. And they turn a lot of ears in congress.
"

I was questioning how environmentalists can see through the charade when the oil industry puts out a study saying "fossil fuels are fine" or publishes studies claiming that "wind turbines are bad because they can kill birds"... They can identify pretty quickly where that's coming from, and how it's being manipulated.

Yet, for fossil fuel lobby funded "anti nuclear propaganda", they don't seem to question that at all?

 

[durangodawood]

....
Yet, for fossil fuel lobby funded "anti nuclear propaganda", they don't seem to question that at all?

Environmentalists already had their own reasons - right or wrong. They wanted a complete renewable no nuke paradigm. Oil vs nuke catfight was irrelevant to that.

 

[Whyayeman]

It's not so much that they're responsible for it... I was referring to the levels of skepticism surrounding it (if you look at the context of the post I was replying to)

OK.

European environmentalists have tended to concentrate on the petroleum industries because they are the most polluting and by far the biggest polluters on the planet now that coal is so much reduced in their own countries. The battle (as they no doubt see it) against nuclear is largely won. German environmentalists led a highly successful campaign and next to no reactors have been built for 30 years or more in Europe.

This logo was everywhere in Western Europe in the seventies and eighties. You never see it now because the campaign largely succeeded

 

[Trogdor the Burninator]

The battle (as they no doubt see it) against nuclear is largely won. German environmentalists led a highly successful campaign and next to no reactors have been built for 30 years or more in Europe.

An outcome for which they should hang their heads in eternal shame, and probably never be taken seriously on environmental issues again.

Looking up electricity map shows that Germany is shoving 27 times the amount of CO2 into the air per kWh compared to France at this moment in time. What an outcome.